New head of Finnish customs proposes tightening sanctions on Russia

The new head of Finnish customs, Sami Rakshit, proposed banning all exports to Russia and issuing permits for exclusive trade transactions, as well as providing the EU with a body for monitoring compliance with sanctions, including in third countries, Report informs via TASS.

Such a system of sanctions will force countries to separately justify the supply of each product exported to Russia, he said in an interview with the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper.

Rakshit's second proposal is based on the model of the United States, which enforces its own sanctions around the world. US legislation is such that Washington considers itself competent to impose sanctions even outside its territory. Rakshit questions why the EU is acting partly through the US to enforce sanctions when it can act directly and independently. If the EU considered itself competent to apply sanctions outside the EU territory, the authorities of EU countries could begin inspections of companies, for example, in Central Asian countries, Rakshit believes. EU inspectors could, for example, visit companies operating in Kazakhstan and demand evidence that products were not supplied to Russia.

“All such actions make it difficult to evade [sanctions] and increase the prices of goods that enter Russia,” Rakshit said.